Home > Consumer Reviews > Sony KDL-40X3500 - 40'' Widescreen Bravia 1080P Full HD LCD TV - With Freeview

After many months of consideration and looking at other models and makes I settled for the TV I had always wanted. I am not dissapointed. Fantastic Television. I love it. I have had it for over a year now. Pleasure to watch. Good sound. Easy to tune. No problems.

I used to think that Sony represented quality and value for money...NOT ANY MORE!

Having spent ages browsing the internet, reading customer reviews and traipsing through many stores viewing tv`s till the cows came home, I decided to take the plunge and choose the Sony KDL40X3500 tv.

The KDL40X3500 is by no means a bad tv, it has the nice "floating glass" appearance, the sound is very good, and the picture on both analogue/digital modes are good but nothing exceptional, and the HD picture mode is very good but I still felt the picture quality was still lacking in image quality and crispness. and the blacks on screen are pretty deep but still could be better!

Now my biggest gripes:

Autodimming can be a pain in the arse when watching tv, unless you switch Game/Text mode on, which turns off the autodimming, however, switching on the Game/Text mode then means losing the use of Motion Enhancer, as both functions cannot be on at the same time, which is inexplicable on Sony`s part.

When watching cable or a dvd/video and I select a channel on digital setting, the speech is out of sync with the character who is on screen at the time, and I have to switch to analogue and then back to digital to get the person/speech back into sync which is improved but still not perfect!
Digital tv is not brilliant and even after having a new digital tv ariel installed by a professional, still had problems with some of the digital channels and functions and still felt the picture quality was average at best.

Night time and darkness hours are when this tv shows its worst flaws!

The backlight even when set to minimum is still way too bright, and when watching TV at night or in the dark, pockets of light(bright/cloudy pixels) are visible in the 4 corners of the screen, and are particularly noticeable when viewing programs/films which contain lots of dark scenes.
very soon these pixels of light become more of an annoyance and no amount of contrast/brightness adjusting makes any difference to eliminating the brightness of the pixels whatsoever!

If you are a Sci Fi or Horror fan like me, and like to watch programs/movies in the wee small hours of darkness, then this tv is NOT for you!
This tv is best viewed in daylight hours or brightly lit rooms where the brightness isn`t as noticeable and viewing Sci Fi or Horror movies in the middle of a bright sunny day diminishes the atmosphere!

I am pretty disgusted with Sony`s quality of products these days and disappointed that I paid over £1000 for this bog standard model!

The Sony KDL40X3500 is vastly overpriced and overhyped and if any of you have any sense, you`ll stay well clear of this tv!

I am only giving the KDL40X3500 1 star as I have not had any problems with fan noise whatsoever!
Over £1000 for a naff TV but at least I have quiet fans!

Sony have certainly sunk to new lows in the quality department!

Truly a fantastic TV. It takes a few minutes to set-up all the options but once you have the picture and sound quality are quite remarkable. The options are easliy adjusted to account for different inputs - for example the first series of Red Dwarf has very poor sound but the 'voice zoom' feature really helps but you may not need it for recently made movies. The picture 'noise reduction' feature is terrific at removing unwanted artefacts from the picture too.

A great product that looks cool too. It's good to see Sony back at the top of the TV rankings.

Had my Sony Bravia X3500 now for about 6 weeks and I have loved every minute of it.
It really is a beautiful piece of kit with the brushed metal edging and the glorious 1080p HD screen which presents anything and everything spectacularly.
Watching fast moving sports like football is just amazing with the 100Hz motion flow in action.
The speakers and audio set up are great, although a surround sound system would obviously be a improvement, I don't have one hooked up at the moment and am more than happy so far.
The fans which have been mentioned below and in other reviews for this TV have now been fixed on newer models, I can't hear anything on my TV even with the sound down and my ear up close to the screen.
It is an expensive option but definatly the best TV you can buy.
Highly recommended.

I bought mine about 4 weeks ago - so well after all these fan problems were resolved.

Anyway what can I say, except WOW! An incredible TV and watching Planet Earth in HD really does show what this is capable of. And in the brushed metal it just looks stunning as well.

Can not recommend this TV enough.